Archive for February 25th, 2010

Many of you may have seen the Facebook promotion that T.G.I. Friday’s began last year. They created a character named Woody. Become a fan of Woody and when he gets 500,000 fans, every one of them gets a free hamburger. It was a terrific hit and soon Woody had over 900,000 fans, as well as their email address and a heck of a marketing database. I personally thought it was a great idea. Woody traveled across the country visiting restaurants and snapping photos with fans, who posted them on the site. There was video, discussions, and a tremendous opportunity to build community.

That is until Woody’s girlfriend took him back? What?!? That’s it? T.G.I. Friday’s and all their genius decided they should stop the promotion and retire Woody? Okay so maybe the actor playing Woody wasn’t available anymore or it was getting too costly to ship him around the country. I get it. Why not evolve the site? Give Woody a make-over? If your company acts with this type of short-sighted and short-term thinking then you should probably NOT look to social media as a promotional tool.

T.G.I. Friday’s decision to stop the campaign will ultimately do more brand damage than it did positive promotion, and evidence of that is already on display. Many of the “discussions” in the discussion section are negative in nature and rail against the restaurant chain for betrayal. The comments after Woody’s announcement are more negative than positive (click on the image to the right to see for yourself). How is this helping their brand? What started as a great idea – a large community of interested followers – is now a forum for bashing Friday’s. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so drop a comment. I’m no longer a fan of Woody’s so you won’t find me there.